Old St. Augustine Hills

Most properties make you choose: town or country, the hunt or the water, history or convenience. This one never learned to choose.  Welcome to Old St. Augustine Hills ... a 100+/- acre legacy sporting estate in the Red Hills of Leon County, Florida.  Wild Bobwhite quail in the uplands, bass in the spring-fed ponds, wood ducks in the cypress pond, deer and turkey in the hardwood bottoms, wooden bridges flanked with Southern magnolias, fruit orchards along the paved drive, irrigated baseball athletic field, raised bed gardens, owner's workshop: a one-hundred-acre property that lives like a thousand-acre estate, all within eight miles of Florida's Capitol and eighteen miles from the Gulf Coast.

"I feel incredibly grateful to have raised our children on this beautiful property.  Surrounded by nature, they learned to slow down, appreciate the outdoors, respect the land, care for the wildlife that shares it with us and understand the importance of caring for the world around them.  Most of all, the memories made on this property will always hold a special place in our hearts and I hope it brings the same joy to the next family who will call this place home." - René Hanselman - Owner 

The estate fronts Old St. Augustine Road, one of the oldest roads in America; and carries a heritage more than four centuries in the making. It is where the land and history become one.

c. 1900 — Bellamy Road / Old St. Augustine Road (pr04241)

In 1960, a retired Navy captain named Albert Gallatin Neal bought this land, dug its spring-fed ponds, and planted more than 4,000 trees.  When he passed in 1980, his widow Margaret Neal stewarded this land for another two decades --- courted by developers, she refused them all, determined that the land would go only to a family who would care for it the way the Captain had.  In 2003 she found that family.  David and René Hanselman became the next land stewards and built a home worthy of the ground it stands on and raised four children beneath the Captain's trees.  For sixty-five years, two families have cared for this place, and each left it better than they found it.  That care is what comes with this deed.

"This land is so much more than a recreational estate -- it is where land and history become one.  Its story deserves to be entrusted to a steward who will honor four hundred years of heritage.  I don't sell land.  I find its next steward."  - Lori Bembry Weldon - Broker

 One of One

At the heart of the estate stands a 6000+/- square foot fully furnished cypress post-and-beam residence -- six bedrooms, seven and half bathrooms - that feels less built than grown from its setting. René Hanselman, artist, designer, and owner of Innova Design Firm, shaped every detail alongside Ken Pieper with a single intent: to make the home one with the land.  David Hanselman spent more than a year hand-selecting the cypress, tree by tree, from the incoming trucks at Sunshine State Cypress.  The millwork alone filled more than 20 pages of drawings -- every custom molding and door cut with knives made specifically for the task.  In the owner's words: it is a work of art.

The welcome begins at a front door made as fine art -- a one-of-a-kind stained-glass tree set into solid double doors, designed by René and executed by stained-glass artist Karen Pritzel, beneath a custom pendant of stained-glass and wrought-iron magnolia leaves by the artist Jezebel of Madrid, New Mexico.  Beyond it the sunken great room rises twenty-five feet to solid cypress beams, anchored by a floor-to-ceiling stone fireplace that heats the living room and kitchen areas -- and on the lake side, a fully opening glass wall dissolves the entire room into the covered porch and water beyond.

“It’s been the privilege of a lifetime to live in this home on this amazing land. The memories we have are endless and timeless, leaving here will be one of the hardest things we ever do in our lives.” -- David Hanselman - Owner 

The chef's kitchen pairs Viking appliances and a double quartz island under a dropped pecky cypress ceiling with custom cypress cabinetry and a stone arch over the range.  The breakfast room gathers under a pecky-cypress cathedral ceiling and an antler chandelier, wall-to-wall glass to the lake and pool.  The master suite is a retreat unto itself -- cypress tray ceiling, a fireplace shared between bedroom and spa bath, a freestanding soaking tub set before a picture window on the water, and a private door straight onto the pool deck.  A family wing rings a cupola-lit, soundproofed common room; two more guest suites rest on their own split level; and a two-story wing holds a private office -- its built-in maple desk fronted with an antique door under glass --above a true working artists studio.  Whole home Lutron lighting and Sonos audio follow you from the kitchen to the water, and a buried 1,000-gallon propane reserve powers the entire home.  A Generac generator runs the entire home for roughly three weeks off the grid.  The three-car garage is finished with two Pella window walls, a large attic, and a separate storage room with its own entry.  Soft-water systems serve the home, and a irrigation system waters the grounds.

It is a rare thing to acquire not just a house, but the furniture and art made for it.  Original Paul Tamanian art and furniture custom made for the exact place it occupies conveys and is valued together well over six figures.

Entertaining - Second to None

This home was made to gather.  A resort-scale waterfall pool set with Tennessee boulders -- jump rock, shallow play platform, night lighting, heatable.  A full outdoor kitchen with corian counters, built-in grill, twin frying stations, and a Restoration Hardware wood burning fireplace above the water area.  A private entertaining courtyard engineered so guests flow from courtyard to pool without ever crossing into the family's quarters.  It has hosted charity galas for Boys Town and the United Way, watch parties, prom photographs on the back lawn with the cypress pond behind -- two hundred guests received with ease, and not one of them ever inside the family's privacy.  And on autumn Saturdays: tailgate under your own oaks and be in your seat at Doak Campbell in about twenty minutes -- then come home for the after-party.  Game day has rarely been so effortless, or so well hosted.

The Approach 

Once inside the private gate, a paved drive of more than half a mile runs beneath stately Southern magnolias, across a wooden bridge, past quail uplands, live oaks and one of two fruit orchards heavy with pear, fig, persimmon, satsuma, and blood oranges.  It's a welcome worthy of the place it leads to.  And once the gate closes, the outside world simply fades away.

Sport and Stewardship

Multiple coveys of wild bobwhite quail hold on this property -- mornings come alive with covey calls echoing through the rolling uplands -- with the habitat to be managed into a classic Red Hills "Gentleman's Sporting Estate."  Wood ducks work the cypress pond, turkey and whitetail deer move through the hardwoods, and food plots and hunting blinds are already in place.  The fully irrigated ball field can serve multiple purposes:  a pickleball court, putting green, tennis courts or equestrian paddocks.  The barn stands ready for the equipment and equestrian update.  And overlooking the ball field area sits the gardening shed -- raised beds planted with wildflowers and fresh vegetables, gathered around a lovely sitting area that connects to the owner's workshop, perfect for maintenance projects and hobbies, with lights, water, and power throughout.  It is the current owners' favorite spot early in the morning -- a quieter luxury still, coffee in hand and hands in the dirt.  It is the rare estate that gives you something to do at first light, and nothing you ever have to do.

Beyond the gate, the estate belongs to the Red Hills -- a belt of more than 400,000 acres held by like-minded stewards and anchored by Tall Timbers Research & Land Conservancy.  And minutes south, the springs country.  Wakulla Springs, among the largest and deepest freshwater springs on earth; the St Marks River running past a national wildlife refuge to Apalachee Bay; rivers that vanish into the ground and rise again.  Spring-fed country where manatees, alligators, and wood ducks are neighbors -- and your family's back door opens to it all.

*Some chapters of this land's story are shared only in person.

Built on Living Water 

Spring-fed ponds stocked with largemouth bass and panfish -- one with its own dock, both dug by the Captain in 1960 and ringed by cypress.  A duck pond where wood ducks winter, their whistles filling the woodland sinkholes each fall.  A gently flowing stream winding through the rear of the estate, fresh water the year round.  The same limestone that feeds Wakulla Springs and swallows the St. Marks River at Natural Bridge runs beneath this ground.  The water here was not added.  It is the reason everything else exists.

"These ponds are spring-fed, rising from the same limestone that carries the St. Marks River underground at Natural Bridge, eight miles south. The land itself sits on the Cody Scarp — the ancient coastline where the Red Hills meet the sea's old floor. Ground like this and water like this cannot be recreated. They were here long before any of us, and they will be here long after." -- Lori Bembry Weldon - Broker

Location and Access

Few estates anywhere pair this much seclusion with this much reach.  The Florida State Capitol and downtown Tallahassee are eight miles away; Doak Campbell Stadium is about fifteen minutes.  Tallahassee International Airport is twelve miles.  To the south lies the springs country -- Edward Ball Wakulla Springs, among the largest and deepest freshwater springs in the world, with its glass bottom boats, manatees, and wading birds, is fifteen miles; Natural Bridge Battlefield is eight; and the St Marks Boat Landing, the national wildlife refuge, and the Gulf Coast at Apalachee Bay are eighteen miles down the road -- river and saltwater boating and fishing within an easy drive. Old St Augustine Hills truly is the best of both worlds.

Zoning and Taxes

The estate is zoned Urban Fringe with a Rural Residential future land use, and carries homestead and timber tax benefits in place.

 An Ancient Coastline

The estate rises along the Cody Scarp, the ancient shoreline where Florida's Red Hills step down to meet the coastal plain.  The sea drew back more than a million years ago.  The high ground it left behind is why this land rolls, why the springs run, and why the wildlife never left.  That one line in the earth is the master key to this place.  North of it, the Red Hills -- deep, rich, red-clay uplands that built the plantation fortunes of the Chaires district and grew the greatest wild-quail country on earth.  South of it, the limestone lowlands where whole rivers slip underground.  This property sits on the rich, high side of the Cody Scarp line.  Stand at its high point and you are standing roughly 100 feet above sea level, on the shoulder of a shoreline older than human memory.  Nature spent a million years making this ground.  It cannot be recreated. 

"Where rivers grow their own bridges and the hills still remember the sea -- that's the ground these ponds rise from." -- Lori Bembry Weldon -- Broker 

400+ Years of Florida History 

The road at the gate has carried travelers since the 1680's - first worn by the Apalachee people, formalized by the Spanish as the Royal Road, El Camino Real, linking the mission at Tallahassee to St. Augustine.  In 1826 it was rebuilt as the Bellamy Road, the first federal highway in territorial Florida.  Today it is a protected Leon County Canopy Road, its cathedral of live oaks shielded by ordinance since 1972.  A road like this cannot be built again; one can only be fortunate enough to live along it.  The land surrounding it carries the same depth.  This is the historic Chaires plantation district -- cotton country opened in the 1830s -- and when cotton gave way, these hills became the Red Hills sporting country, the storied "Cotton to Quail" belt between Tallahassee and Thomasville, Georgia.  Eight miles south lies Natural Bridge, where in March 1865 a Confederate force -- including the teenage cadets of the West Florida Seminary, forerunner to Florida State University -- kept Tallahassee the only confederate capital east of the Mississippi River never captured.  Four centuries of Florida history moved past this ground, and very little of that Florida is left.  This is some of it and the opportunity to own a piece of it is truly rare.

Florida Archives -n035699 - C1920 - Ethel L. Merritt & Levy Ree Merritt near Natural Bridge

The full story of this extraordinary property premieres on the @LandwithLori YouTube channel — subscribe to view more Legacy Land Stories and to learn more about the history of this unique area of North Florida and South Georgia.